Tag Archives: Sanchit Gogia

India is the fastest growing market for open source operating system Ubuntu, helped by tie-ups with top PC vendors and the increasing adoption of cloud-based applications in the country.

The Linux-based operating system grew 50% year-over-year in India. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has partnered with Dell and HP to bundle the OS with certain models of their laptops offered in India.

“India is the fastest growing market for us with great stickiness and adoption of Ubuntu. It is definitely one of our key focus markets globally,” said Prakash Advani, regional manager for Asia Pacific at Canonical.

As enterprises move more to the cloud, Ubuntu becomes more relevant for them. “People are switching to Ubuntu as it is simpler to understand. It is also easier to use and install than other OS,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO of Greyhound Research.

Online directory service JustDial is among the early adopters of Ubuntu and has 4,500 desktops running on the operating system currently. “Since our CRM (customer relationship management) is browser-based,” said Mahesh Pawar, head of IT and telecom at JustDial. “We chose Ubuntu because it is stable, doesn’t require anti-virus patch management administration like Windows, is highly secure and cost effective.”
To ensure that users are comfortable, the company has started conducting Ubuntu basic awareness training. “If users still insist for Windows operating system, then we educate those users how they can use Ubuntu effectively,” Pawar said.

Bangalore-based Narayana Hrudayalaya, a low-cost and high quality healthcare service provider, is also trying to move from Windows to Ubuntu to cut costs.

“We are trying out Ubuntu. We aren’t against licenced technology but we want to use it sparingly.

“We are trying to make critical applications work on open source operating systems,” Srikanth Raman, CIO at Narayana Hrudayalaya, said.

In the past couple of years, Ubuntu has been able to penetrate into the government and education sectors with some large deals such as the 15-lakh laptop deal with the Uttar Pradesh government, a 61,000 laptop deal with the University of Delhi and a 28,000 laptop deal with Assam’s Amtron.

Ubuntu has also seen growth in the consumer segment with users opting for cheaper versions of laptops that come pre-installed with it.

“Ubuntu’s partnership with Dell was a crucial one. With laptops being pre-installed with Ubuntu and sold in numerous Dell stores, proved to be beneficial in increasing sales,” analyst Gogia said. In 2012, Dell joined hands with Ubuntu and announced that 850 stores in the country would sell laptops pre-installed with the OS. Dell currently offers most of its Inspiron and Vostro ranges with Ubuntu.

“Our retail business has been growing quarter-on-quarter. While we don’t have a more detailed breakup of numbers, in that scenario Ubuntu has correspondingly grown as well,” said Alen Jose, Consumer & Small Business Product Lead, Dell India.

After successfully making a dent in the market share of multinational phone-makers, the domestic players are eyeing double-digit growth from exports.

Karbonn Mobiles, which ranks as the third largest phone-maker in India, according to market research firm IDC, is looking to get 16 per cent of its revenues from overseas markets.

The Titanium series maker currently gets around 8 per cent of its revenue from exports, according to company officials. It made its foray abroad a year ago.

Sudhir Hasija, founder Chairman of Karbonn, wants to expand the company’s presence in Europe. “It would be great to make a mark in Finland, where Nokia was born,” he said. Other mobile device makers have followed Karbonn.

Swipe Telecom, a start-up that raised ₹30 crore from Kalaari Capital, expects to get 15 per cent of its revenue from exports of its products such as Konnect, a 5-inch phablet. “We do export our devices outside India, especially to SAARC countries,” said Shripal Gandhi, Swipe founder and CEO.

Similarly, Murali Retineni, Executive Director, Celkon Mobiles, said in 2013, the company got ₹40-50 crore from exports, which is 5 per cent of its revenue. “We aim to double it to ₹100 crore this fiscal, which will be approximately 10 per cent of our revenue,” he added.

In January, the country’s leading device maker, Micromax, launched operations in Russia and partnered with distributor VVP Group, with an eye on the world’s eighth largest economy.

Micromax introduced its Canvas series of smartphones and Bolt series of feature phones, with plans to be in the top four in that market.

‘Affordable’ segment

The push by Indian device makers comes at a time when Google has announced the ‘Android One’ initiative, which is about launching low-priced smartphones in emerging markets.

Also, Microsoft has discontinued the Nokia X series phones, which run on Android, targeted at emerging markets, thereby opening up opportunities, said industry watchers. “With Samsung and LG at the top end, Indian players are seeing a lot of opportunities in the ‘affordable’ phones segment,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, analyst with Greyhound Research.

According to IDC, smartphone sales in India grew almost three-fold to over 44 million in 2013.

In January-March 2014, 17.59 million smartphones were shipped into India, compared with 6.14 million in the corresponding period of 2013.

Once a darling of stock markets, Infosys is now battling challenges like pushing growth and retaining talent and these are issues that the newly appointed CEO Vishal Sikka will have to act on fast to rekindle confidence among customers and investors, analysts said.

Sikka, a former Board member of German software giant SAP, took over as the CEO of Infosys last week. He is the first outsider and non-founder CEO of the country’s second largest software services firm.

“The news of Sikka’s announcement is extremely important for Infosys since it ends the uncertainty that was the main enemy of Infosys. The new CEO will have to move very quickly to first calm the three key stakeholders, employees, customers and the investors, in that order,” Gartner Research India Country Manager Partha Iyengar said.

Infosys cannot afford any more resource departures especially at senior levels, he added.

Sikka, 47, previously headed technology and innovation at SAP and created analytics product HANA.
Once the IT bellwether, Infosys in the last couple of years has been reporting laggard performance, facing harassment allegations by overseas employees, top level exists, among others.

Its employee attrition hit a record high of 19.5 percent in the April-June quarter of 2014-15, up from 16.9 percent in the year-ago period.

All this at a time when its peers like TCS and HCL Technologies are reporting stellar performances.
“He will have to establish credibility with those stakeholders again, in a fairly short period and then energise them in the medium to long term. The medium term strategy will have to be fairly close to the knitting of the IT services industry, anything else will create a level of confusion and uncertainty again,” Iyengar said.

Greyhound Research CEO Sanchit Vir Gogia feels though the firm is showing signs of recovery, it’s still too early to say if it is in full swing and the new CEO has a lot on his hands.

“Vishal Sikka is stepping in at a time when Infosys is at a crossroads. The company has lost a lot of key people at the senior management. There are signs of recovery but we cannot say that the recovery is in its full swing yet. It’s a tough position to hold and a tough job at hand. Vishal has got lots of ground to cover,” he added.

“In my view, Sikka should rather be spending that disproportionate amount of focus on the core bread and butter businesses and address Infosys’ rampant attrition, because until those are fixed the rest is really just a sideshow,” he said in a post.

Sikka last week had said that the thrust of his strategy will be on intellectual property, products and platforms, with a focus on SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics/Big Data, Cloud).

Tech Market View’s Miller said: “We are all for IP-based services, indeed it’s about the only way to counter service commoditisation. And there?s no doubt that the future lies in the SMAC stack.

“But both of these are really more about tomorrow’s world in terms of moving the revenue growth needle – as Infosys found with its prior Tomorrow’s Enterprise– tagged strategy.”It’s important for Sikka to understand the business, its people and issues revolving around the firm, Gogia said.

“He should essentially better acquaint himself with the business and develop relationships and earn trust before making defining changes,” he added.

Gogia said focus will also be on stepping up the profile for Infosys in US and European markets and improve positioning in innovation and digital.

In the short term, Sikka will need to build internal confidence. Getting a buy in from senior management, addressing investors, areas of improvement, becoming more hand on to the business are key focus areas that he will need to look at, Gogia said.

While in the medium term, Sikka needs to strengthen and build partnerships and alliances particularly in emerging tech and markets, Gogia said.

Attrition is one aspect that requires monitoring, setting of mid managers, investing in people is going to critical in midterm, he added.

However, Infosys has bettered market expectations and its performance in the last fiscal and the April-June quarter of this fiscal prove that.

Once a darling of stock markets, Infosys is now battling challenges like pushing growth and retaining talent and these are issues that the newly appointed CEO Vishal Sikka will have to act on fast to rekindle confidence among customers and investors, analysts said.

Sikka, a former Board member of German software giant SAP, took over as the CEO of Infosys last week. He is the first outsider and non-founder CEO of the country’s second largest software services firm.

“The news of Sikka’s announcement is extremely important for Infosys since it ends the uncertainty that was the main enemy of Infosys. The new CEO will have to move very quickly to first calm the three key stakeholders, employees, customers and the investors, in that order,” Gartner Research India Country Manager Partha Iyengar said.

Infosys cannot afford any more resource departures especially at senior levels, he added.

Sikka, 47, previously headed technology and innovation at SAP and created analytics product HANA.
Once the IT bellwether, Infosys in the last couple of years has been reporting laggard performance, facing harassment allegations by overseas employees, top level exists, among others.

Its employee attrition hit a record high of 19.5 percent in the April-June quarter of 2014-15, up from 16.9 percent in the year-ago period.

All this at a time when its peers like TCS and HCL Technologies are reporting stellar performances.
“He will have to establish credibility with those stakeholders again, in a fairly short period and then energise them in the medium to long term. The medium term strategy will have to be fairly close to the knitting of the IT services industry, anything else will create a level of confusion and uncertainty again,” Iyengar said.

Greyhound Research CEO Sanchit Vir Gogia feels though the firm is showing signs of recovery, it’s still too early to say if it is in full swing and the new CEO has a lot on his hands.

“Vishal Sikka is stepping in at a time when Infosys is at a crossroads. The company has lost a lot of key people at the senior management. There are signs of recovery but we cannot say that the recovery is in its full swing yet. It’s a tough position to hold and a tough job at hand. Vishal has got lots of ground to cover,” he added.

“In my view, Sikka should rather be spending that disproportionate amount of focus on the core bread and butter businesses and address Infosys’ rampant attrition, because until those are fixed the rest is really just a sideshow,” he said in a post.

Sikka last week had said that the thrust of his strategy will be on intellectual property, products and platforms, with a focus on SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics/Big Data, Cloud).

Tech Market View’s Miller said: “We are all for IP-based services, indeed it’s about the only way to counter service commoditisation. And there?s no doubt that the future lies in the SMAC stack.

“But both of these are really more about tomorrow’s world in terms of moving the revenue growth needle – as Infosys found with its prior Tomorrow’s Enterprise– tagged strategy.”It’s important for Sikka to understand the business, its people and issues revolving around the firm, Gogia said.

“He should essentially better acquaint himself with the business and develop relationships and earn trust before making defining changes,” he added.

Gogia said focus will also be on stepping up the profile for Infosys in US and European markets and improve positioning in innovation and digital.

In the short term, Sikka will need to build internal confidence. Getting a buy in from senior management, addressing investors, areas of improvement, becoming more hand on to the business are key focus areas that he will need to look at, Gogia said.

While in the medium term, Sikka needs to strengthen and build partnerships and alliances particularly in emerging tech and markets, Gogia said.

Attrition is one aspect that requires monitoring, setting of mid managers, investing in people is going to critical in midterm, he added.

However, Infosys has bettered market expectations and its performance in the last fiscal and the April-June quarter of this fiscal prove that.

Once a darling of stock markets, Infosys is now battling challenges like pushing growth and retaining talent and these are issues that the newly appointed CEO Vishal Sikka will have to act on fast to rekindle confidence among customers and investors, analysts said.

Sikka, a former Board member of German software giant SAP, took over as the CEO of Infosys last week. He is the first outsider and non-founder CEO of the country’s second largest software services firm.

“The news of Sikka’s announcement is extremely important for Infosys since it ends the uncertainty that was the main enemy of Infosys. The new CEO will have to move very quickly to first calm the three key stakeholders, employees, customers and the investors, in that order,” Gartner Research India Country Manager Partha Iyengar said.

Infosys cannot afford any more resource departures especially at senior levels, he added.

Sikka, 47, previously headed technology and innovation at SAP and created analytics product HANA.
Once the IT bellwether, Infosys in the last couple of years has been reporting laggard performance, facing harassment allegations by overseas employees, top level exists, among others.

Its employee attrition hit a record high of 19.5 percent in the April-June quarter of 2014-15, up from 16.9 percent in the year-ago period.

All this at a time when its peers like TCS and HCL Technologies are reporting stellar performances.
“He will have to establish credibility with those stakeholders again, in a fairly short period and then energise them in the medium to long term. The medium term strategy will have to be fairly close to the knitting of the IT services industry, anything else will create a level of confusion and uncertainty again,” Iyengar said.

Greyhound Research CEO Sanchit Vir Gogia feels though the firm is showing signs of recovery, it’s still too early to say if it is in full swing and the new CEO has a lot on his hands.

“Vishal Sikka is stepping in at a time when Infosys is at a crossroads. The company has lost a lot of key people at the senior management. There are signs of recovery but we cannot say that the recovery is in its full swing yet. It’s a tough position to hold and a tough job at hand. Vishal has got lots of ground to cover,” he added.

“In my view, Sikka should rather be spending that disproportionate amount of focus on the core bread and butter businesses and address Infosys’ rampant attrition, because until those are fixed the rest is really just a sideshow,” he said in a post.

Sikka last week had said that the thrust of his strategy will be on intellectual property, products and platforms, with a focus on SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics/Big Data, Cloud).

Tech Market View’s Miller said: “We are all for IP-based services, indeed it’s about the only way to counter service commoditisation. And there?s no doubt that the future lies in the SMAC stack.

“But both of these are really more about tomorrow’s world in terms of moving the revenue growth needle – as Infosys found with its prior Tomorrow’s Enterprise– tagged strategy.”It’s important for Sikka to understand the business, its people and issues revolving around the firm, Gogia said.

“He should essentially better acquaint himself with the business and develop relationships and earn trust before making defining changes,” he added.

Gogia said focus will also be on stepping up the profile for Infosys in US and European markets and improve positioning in innovation and digital.

In the short term, Sikka will need to build internal confidence. Getting a buy in from senior management, addressing investors, areas of improvement, becoming more hand on to the business are key focus areas that he will need to look at, Gogia said.

While in the medium term, Sikka needs to strengthen and build partnerships and alliances particularly in emerging tech and markets, Gogia said.

Attrition is one aspect that requires monitoring, setting of mid managers, investing in people is going to critical in midterm, he added.

However, Infosys has bettered market expectations and its performance in the last fiscal and the April-June quarter of this fiscal prove that.

Once a darling of stock markets, Infosys is now battling challenges like pushing growth and retaining talent and these are issues that the newly appointed CEO Vishal Sikka will have to act on fast to rekindle confidence among customers and investors, analysts said.

Sikka, a former Board member of German software giant SAP, took over as the CEO of Infosys last week. He is the first outsider and non-founder CEO of the country’s second largest software services firm.

“The news of Sikka’s announcement is extremely important for Infosys since it ends the uncertainty that was the main enemy of Infosys. The new CEO will have to move very quickly to first calm the three key stakeholders, employees, customers and the investors, in that order,” Gartner Research India Country Manager Partha Iyengar said.

Infosys cannot afford any more resource departures especially at senior levels, he added.

Sikka, 47, previously headed technology and innovation at SAP and created analytics product HANA.
Once the IT bellwether, Infosys in the last couple of years has been reporting laggard performance, facing harassment allegations by overseas employees, top level exists, among others.

Its employee attrition hit a record high of 19.5 percent in the April-June quarter of 2014-15, up from 16.9 percent in the year-ago period.

All this at a time when its peers like TCS and HCL Technologies are reporting stellar performances.
“He will have to establish credibility with those stakeholders again, in a fairly short period and then energise them in the medium to long term. The medium term strategy will have to be fairly close to the knitting of the IT services industry, anything else will create a level of confusion and uncertainty again,” Iyengar said.

Greyhound Research CEO Sanchit Vir Gogia feels though the firm is showing signs of recovery, it’s still too early to say if it is in full swing and the new CEO has a lot on his hands.

“Vishal Sikka is stepping in at a time when Infosys is at a crossroads. The company has lost a lot of key people at the senior management. There are signs of recovery but we cannot say that the recovery is in its full swing yet. It’s a tough position to hold and a tough job at hand. Vishal has got lots of ground to cover,” he added.

“In my view, Sikka should rather be spending that disproportionate amount of focus on the core bread and butter businesses and address Infosys’ rampant attrition, because until those are fixed the rest is really just a sideshow,” he said in a post.

Sikka last week had said that the thrust of his strategy will be on intellectual property, products and platforms, with a focus on SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics/Big Data, Cloud).

Tech Market View’s Miller said: “We are all for IP-based services, indeed it’s about the only way to counter service commoditisation. And there?s no doubt that the future lies in the SMAC stack.

“But both of these are really more about tomorrow’s world in terms of moving the revenue growth needle – as Infosys found with its prior Tomorrow’s Enterprise– tagged strategy.”It’s important for Sikka to understand the business, its people and issues revolving around the firm, Gogia said.

“He should essentially better acquaint himself with the business and develop relationships and earn trust before making defining changes,” he added.

Gogia said focus will also be on stepping up the profile for Infosys in US and European markets and improve positioning in innovation and digital.

In the short term, Sikka will need to build internal confidence. Getting a buy in from senior management, addressing investors, areas of improvement, becoming more hand on to the business are key focus areas that he will need to look at, Gogia said.

While in the medium term, Sikka needs to strengthen and build partnerships and alliances particularly in emerging tech and markets, Gogia said.

Attrition is one aspect that requires monitoring, setting of mid managers, investing in people is going to critical in midterm, he added.

However, Infosys has bettered market expectations and its performance in the last fiscal and the April-June quarter of this fiscal prove that.